In a message dated 12/5/99 4:17:10 PM Pacific Standard Time, kswafford@earthlink.net (Kent Swafford) writes: << If you wish to turn up your nose at the uneven 3rds in my Acrosonic tuning, I guess I could turn up my nose at the 5ths that don't come out quite right in Jim Coleman's Acrosonic tuning. But the problem is the piano, not the tuning and not the tuning theory>> Well, I don't know if I would like them or not, that is my point. If they are uneven but fit a Well-Tempered Tuning pattern, that is, an alignment *with* the cycle of 5ths and not against it, I would really like it. It would be the best sounding tuning there could possibly be for that kind of instrument, in my opinion. But I smell a rat, so to speak. It's kind of like the buttered side of the toast always falling to the floor. It seems that virtually anytime that the exact RBI speeds are ignored, they fall in exact opposition to the Rules for Well Tempered Tuning. I may not always have an explanation as to why, nor am I really that interested in finding out. It just happens so darn much I can hardly believe it myself. And to me that really does matter a lot. As I have stated before, I think correctly structured RBI's matter quite a bit more than the regularity of the tempering of the 4ths & 5ths. In fact, I discovered early in my HT studies that the temperaments known as "Irregular" (meaning different and inconsistently sized 4ths & 5ths) were much more appealing than those temperaments which were rigidly regular. By correctly structured RBI's, I mean either strict ET or some kind of an attempt to be in alignment with the cycle of 5ths. I like the example of the Quasi Equal temperament where all notes are in perfect ET except one, the note C is raised by 1 cent. This makes the CE 3rd slower and the AbC 3rd faster. It is not ET but I would bet my entire fortune that no artist would ever complain about it. Doing the opposite however is what I usually find. Take the same example but lower the note C by 1 cent. Still, no one will complain. It will be accepted. But it really still does a great deal of damage to the character of the music played on it. If people can accept this kind of error, just think of their reaction when they hear it as it is really supposed to be. In the words of a Country and Western song I like, it is "...a whole lot hotter and a whole lot sweeter". >Your idea of using a minimally stretched octave when tuning a high >inharmonicity scale on a spinet seems contradictory to logic at first >consideration...> <<It is interesting that you see minimum stretch in high inharmonicity situations as counter-intuitive.>> Well, ahem, yes, or at least that is what I have consistently learned in PTG tuning classes and publications. It was always presented as the reason you *must* stretch the octaves. Inharmonicity dictates that you *must* make the octave wider than is theoretical. The very idea of deliberately making the octave narrow, even if it is not a perceptible or a barely perceptible amount, would not have occurred to me as ever being correct. But this also tells me why people who used only a StobeTuner or other ETD such as the Korg type still can end up with very nice sounding tunings. Any of the people I have talked to that tune this way indicate that the ETD is used primarily for the temperament. A StobeTuner would produce a slightly compressed octave on an Acrosonic. I'll bet those who used these ETD's went with that and produced a rough version of what you are talking about. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin
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